Tutorial time! I got a gig teaching a recycled t-shirt project at the library a few months ago, with a request for a recycled tee bag – the only bags I’d made from tees in the past had required sturdy sewing, and I didn’t want hand-sewing to be the only thing holding the bottom closed in a class version of the bags, so I started brainstorming about some kind of hand-sewing-friendly or no-sew bag idea…. and here’s what I came up with!
The simplest version of these bags is great for smaller tees, or the more light-weight kind of girl-tees – just turn the bottom of the shirt into a drawstring and tie it closed! As you can see, even with a not huge tee, this will still leave a significant hole in the bottom of your bag, but for purposes like grocery shopping, this size hole shouldn’t really matter…
But to make smaller holes, just make more than one of them! Here’s a bag bottom with 2 holes:
And now for the actual tutorial – for this one, with the step-by-step, I will be making the bottom with 3 holes. So, start with a t-shirt that you don’t wear anymore, or a fun one you found at a thrift store. Besides a tee, you’ll also need scissors and a safety pin. That’s it!
Cut the sleeves off, but try to make a somewhat straight line, and go in a bit from the seam – these lines will be the sides of your straps:
Cut some strips from those sleeve pieces – about half an inch wide, the length of one time around a sleeve is good, and as many strips as the number of holes you’ll be making in your bag bottom. (I’ve made bags with 1, 2, and 3 holes, but I haven’t tried more than that.) Pull the ends of the strips to stretch them out and make them curl in:
Cut the neck out to become your bag’s opening – the way you cut this can depend on your tee’s picture (if there is a picture), and also the shape you want your bag. Just make sure you cut a big enough opening to fit things through, for a functional bag:
You could make it rounded, V-shaped, or squared like this one:
Now the top/straps part is done, time for the bottom. Snip slits in the hem part of the tee bottom – as many slits as you want holes. 3 slits, below, is for 3 holes, for a single hole, like the yellow one at the top, just cut one slit, and for 2 holes, snip 2 slits. The slits should be equally spaced from each other, but the spacing doesn’t need to be exact – I just eyeballed my slit placement, no measuring:
Now stick a safety pin through the end of one of those strips you made, and start running it through the hem, through one of the slits:
Run it through to the next slit (or all the way around and back to the beginning, if you’re making a single hole) and pull the cord so it’s centered-ish:
Tie the hole closed as tightly as you can, and tie a tight knot:
Now repeat those steps for the remaining sections, one slit to the next, tie tightly. This is after the second hole is closed:
For an ultra sturdy bag bottom, tie one cord strand from one hole together with one strand from the hole next to it, tightly, and repeat for each strand (as many of these knots as the number of holes you have; ignore this step if you’re making a single hole), so that the holes are all tied to each other.
Now, you can choose whether you want the t-shirt cord ties hanging down at the bottom, or hidden on the inside. To hide them inside, bring them through the center, then tie bows on the inside so they don’t fall back through. Or, tie bows on the outside if you prefer (or you could just cut the cords short and skip the bows):
My finished Sonic bag!
The 1-hole version of this project takes more like 5 minutes, but the more holes you have, the longer it takes (by a few minutes) – it’s my favorite kind of project: 100% recycled materials (in this case, just the tee and nothing else!), minimal tools, quick+easy, and a super useful finished product!
I made these for everyone in my family as extra bonus xmas gifts – my mom just told me she’s been using hers all the time and they are stronger than she would have expected. I even used my family’s bags to wrap their gifts in, to save on paper wrapping waste and because it looked fun!
I failed to show you this idea before the holidays, but you can always save it away in your memory (or bookmarks) for your next gift-giving occasion. I hope you love this project as much as I do! Now go and make lots of them so you’ll never be without a reusable shopping bag again!
Lee Does Stuff 
It also works great with shirts with it non-removable pit stains. (sounds gross, I know) But you cut out that part and get a great bag from a shirt that most people would no longer want to wear
LikeLike
I like what you do and I like your vivid photos!
LikeLike
Too Good ….. thanks
LikeLike
I love this idea. I sewed the bottoms and sewed the cutoff sleeves into a smaLL drawstring BAG to put the beg bag into.
LikeLike
This is so creative! Love it! I’m an old t-shirt re-user too. I can’t help but fall in love with my t-shirts. Thanks so much for the idea.
LikeLike
sp cool i love my new bag
LikeLike
think im going to make a few more
LikeLike
wow amazing
LikeLike
I made this from a t-shirt my boyfriend was going to throw out (it had a big rip in the arm pit, plus pit stains). He was so impressed when he saw the bag, and wants me to show his mom how to do it!
I used the sleeves to make tee-shirt yarn which I made into a headband. Love old t-shirts!!!
LikeLike
OMG!!!!!!!!! i LOVE this just did it along with it and it made a perfect bag. then i did it with four holes and that works even better!!!!! ❤
LikeLike
I love these bags, too! The one I am using now is dark purple and I left the pocket on. Then added a couple of tassels with beads tied around the front part of the handles. The tassels were cut from the left over sleeves. Cut them about 1″ wide then pull to make them curl. My grandkids use these bags as backpacks when ‘going to gramma’s house’.
BTW, I found some tee shirts at the dollar store to make smaller purses for upcoming church bazaar. No-sew is a good thing!
LikeLike
this sounds perfect! When i go vacationing i can pack me a few of my homemade pies! There blueberry~ 🙂 Thankz for the idea! love it~
LikeLike
LOVED this!! I was able to use a t-shirt that the boyfriend bought me awhile back that i never wore because the logo/picture was so huge that it was super unflattering..but now I have an awesome Kid Cudi bag 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you so much for this idea!! I have a few autographed band tees that I have grown out of. I couldn’t even think of parting with them but this is a great way to re-use them!!
LikeLike
This is amazing! Such a fun way to re-purpose an old tee. So fast and simple, just made my very first one–way to beat boredom for a few minute at least! 🙂
LikeLike
I stumbled upon your website here, love the t-shirts and the idea. I however put a seam in the bottom of mine along with gussets. Used a shirt of my daughters. Great idea and great concept. Why give something like a much loved T-shirt to someone other than back to the original owner we all need nice bags to be used for one thing or another.
LikeLike
i was Stumbling and found this project, I’m so in love with this bag aka wrapping paper that I’m using for Birthdays and Christmas…Thank you!!!
LikeLike
I tried this and it worked SO well! It really was incredibly easy, although it did take me longer than 10 minutes. This was truly the perfect solution for a particular t-shirt that was too big for me. Thanks so much!
LikeLike
This would be great using yarn or ribbon to turn a tank top (UK vest) into a bag too! 🙂 Thanks for the tutorial, just made my first one out of a top I loved the pattern of, but it was too itchy to wear!
LikeLike
awesome! thanks! 😉
LikeLike
I am getting ready to go to a retreat for teenage girls, and this is the craft I’m bringing to teach them to do! Thank you for posting – I am giving out the web address for this as well, so you’ll get due credit! We found a great sale on brand new plain-colored Tshirts at a local outlet store – they were $.87 a piece, and when we bought 200+ of them, they gave us a discount, plus we had a 20% off coupon for our entire purchase, plus tax exempt for the organization! We got our shirts for less than $.50 a piece after all that! The girls are going to love this! No-Sew and not many supplies made it perfect for our event! I’ll update later and let you know how it went!
LikeLike
thanks a lot for this tutorial! I did it and it’s really very cute!
LikeLike
I found this page looking for a duct tape bag, and I think I’ll combine the two and make the bag more sturdy. Thanks for the ideas!
LikeLike
Absolutely love this! Thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
my daughter loves them
LikeLike
I found it works best to cut slits alnong the bottom and tie it like a fleece blanket. i didnt liked the round bottom so i did that
LikeLike
I think this was a great idea. I used it to make an old shirt useful again. I found it hard to use the safety pin and taped one end of the strip to a pencil and pushed it through. This was great idea!
LikeLike
I love this idea. I stumbled on this when I was looking for different directions on how to make tshirt scarves. Thank you for sharing!
LikeLike
This was confusing for me but it worked out in the end and i love it!
LikeLike
Thank you very much for this awesome idea.
I’ve translated it in French on my blog
http://www.partageonsnosfetes.fr/2013/04/idee-activite-fete-filles-sac-cabas.html
I love my new bag.
Claire
LikeLike
I just want to say how excited I am to see this! I can’t wait to try it out! I’m a crochet person, and am getting into sewing. I have recently got int recycle/upcycle/save the earth typoe stuff and want to start bring my own grocery bags. This idea is super super awesome!! Thank you!
LikeLike
Could you possibly make a video on this? I’m confused about how you’re supposed to thread the strip through the seam. Thank you. 🙂
LikeLike
Love the idea! Thank you for sharing. 🙂
LikeLike
wow i will defo try that
Thanks !!
LikeLike
Awesome idea! Just tried it out with a neon green shirt and it turned out really well!
LikeLike
This is awesome! A great idea that I’m going to try 🙂
LikeLike
Saw another version of this where you cut strips on the bottom and knot them to each other (front of shirt to back) to seal the bottom of the bag. The picture had a long fringe at the bottom but that would cut into space available. You stretch the pieces before knotting.
LikeLike
this is a great idea! I have a large mens t shirt with wome great words printed on it and have been wondering what to do with it …. I’m going to make this right now…thanks!
LikeLike
smart idea, clever upcycling
LikeLike
I luv this blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Extremely helpful.
LikeLike
This is wonderful. We are doing a Maker Month at my library and this is perfect for our t-shirt hack program.
LikeLike
Hi! I just wanted to tell you that it works with four holes as well 😀 I just tied them really really tight and pulled them even more together with some more scrap fabric 🙂
LikeLike
HI!!
Thank you so much for your very creative idea. I want to make these and donate them to teens/children/moms at the homeless shelter. Heading to Goodwill after I run out of t’s in my closet!! The little girls will like for their toys and treasures in a small t-shirt too! I was looking for no-sew bags and this is perfect and great for the environment -using old T-shirts and not using plastic!! If you have more ideas, please share. Many thanks.
LikeLike
I love the idea.Able to help me with my middle school idea,simple and fast thanks for the idea.
LikeLike
I really love…thanks for this beautiful idea…lovely…
LikeLike
This is a great idea!! I might give one to my brother with his college logo on it!! Have to try.
LikeLike
I just made ds and my husband loved d idea although hez got saddy on losing his old tshirt..thank u for d inspiration!!
LikeLike
Can you make to bag inside out, so that the strings will naturally be on the inside?
LikeLike
i would like to say FANTASTIC
LikeLike
Just did it, didn’t take longer than 3 minutes, I showed it to my mom, she was so confused! She was like “where did you get that?” and I told her I just made and she didn’t understand that I didn’t sew it, haha awsome!
LikeLike
Awesome. This is real creative.
LikeLike